John Kerry on Principles & Values

Jr Senator (MA), Democratic nominee for President

American exceptionalism is about what we do, not what we say

Our opponents like to talk about "American exceptionalism," but all they do is talk. They forget that we are exceptional not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things. We break out of the Great Depression, win two world wars, save lives
fighting AIDS, pull people out of poverty, defend freedom, go to the moon--and produce exceptional people who even give their lives for civil rights and human rights.

Despite what you heard [at the GOP Convention], an exceptional country does care
about the rise of the oceans and the future of the planet. That is a responsibility from the Scriptures--and that too is a responsibility of the leader of the free world. The only thing exceptional about today's Republicans is that--almost without
exception--they oppose everything that has made America exceptional in the first place. An exceptional nation demands the leadership of an exceptional president. And, my fellow Americans, that president is Barack Obama.

AdWatch 2004: disastrous intro ad as liberal elitist

What do voters look for? Style or substance? In his book "The Political Mind", Drew Westen argues that voters respond to emotional judgments more than rational assessments of the candidates.

John Kerry's introductory political ad began with his
narration of his biography: he was born on an army base and always felt the call for military service, especially since he had had the privilege of going to Yale. His navy comrades praised his leadership.

Westen judged the Kerry piece to be a disaster:
"The fact that he [Kerry] was from Massachusetts was well known; the phrase "Massachusetts liberal" had become so successfully branded by the Republicans in 1988 in the Bush-Dukakis campaign that either word could readily evoke the other. When Kerry
added the reference to Yale, he fully activated the disdain and resentment toward Democrats: the 'liberal elite.' Whatever its intended goal, the first paragraph of the Kerry ad served to convey one primary message: This guy isn't like me."

OpEd: Bush & Rove saw flip-flop theme as key opening

Kerry claimed an upset victory in Iowa, won the New Hampshire primary, and cruised to the nomination. A Vietnam veteran and four-term senator, Kerry was a hard worker, a polished debater, and a tough campaigner. I considered him a formidable opponent.

Kerry also had weaknesses. He had the process-oriented mindset of a longtime legislator and a voting record that qualified as the most liberal in the Senate. In the fall of 2003, he had voted against an $87 billion bill to fund troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Shortly after he clinched the nomination, my campaign ran an ad highlighting his position. Kerry responded, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

I spoke to Karl the moment I heard the sound bite. "There's
our opening," I said. "The American people expect their president to take a clear stand and defend it, especially when it comes to supporting troops in combat." We grabbed the "flip-flop" theme and ran with it for the rest of the campaign.

Attempted to filibuster Sam Alito Supreme Court nomination

Probing for weaknesses, Democrats delayed his hearing until January 9,
2006, and then hammered him for 4 days, one more day than Roberts had suffered.

Alito's answers [during the vetting process and nomination hearings] demonstrated he had a brilliant mind and deep legal wisdom.
Alito was never in trouble, given the obvious power of his intellect.

Senator John Kerry phones in a request for a filibuster against Alito from the Swiss Alps. Democrats attempted to filibuster on
January 30 but fell short. Among those supporting the filibuster was Barack Obama. The next day Judge Alito was approved by a 58-42 margin, with only four Democrats supporting him.

2004 flawed exit polls showed Kerry tied in Mississippi

The biggest story of the 2004 election was the fraudulent Edison/Mitofsky Research exit poll on election day. The Mitofsky poll had overstated Democratic percentages by about 6-8% since the 1992 election, but in 2004, the pro-Democratic tilt was absurd.
For example, the exit polls had Bush tied with Kerry in Mississippi. Only at 9 PM when the real results began to come in, did the election flip to Bush.

After the election, the designer of the exit poll, Warren Mitofsky, frantically examined the
results to try to figure out what had gone so horribly wrong. What Mitofsky found was that "the biggest discrepancies between actual precinct votes and the exit pollsters' results occurred in precincts where the exit poll personnel were female graduate
students." It was suggested that Republicans might have been less likely than Democrats to answer the pollsters' questions, "especially when the interviewer is a young woman whose appearance signals she is some kind of Bush hater."

OpEd: Dem 527s funded Kerry well; but GOP 527s destroyed him

If a person wants to contribute unlimited sums to so-called "Section 527 organizations" to spread the word that McCain is a patriot and Obama is a terrorist, there is no legal obstacle so long as there is no institutional connection to an electoral
campaign. In recent years, the nastiest negative campaigning, such as the "Swift Boat" slanders of John Kerry, has been done under the auspices of independent 527s. (Section 527 refers to the provision of the IRS Code.)

On the Democratic side, very
wealthy donors have heavily used 527s to raise and spend money to register voters, build sophisticated voter analysis and targeting software, and get out the vote. The largest of the Section 527 groups on the Democratic side, America Coming Together
(ACT) raised $196 million for voter drives and an ad blitz. Thanks to these donations, Kerry's hapless 2004 campaign was at least financially and technologically competitive (the problem was not money; it was the candidate and his handlers).

Challenging Ohio voting irregularities was too "personal"

He could mount a challenge in Ohio based on the provisional ballots. But the number of provisionals was roughly equivalent to Bush's lead, so Kerry would have to take virtually all of
them.

He could challenge Ohio based on allegations of voting irregularities.

His campaign had a dossier that showed how people in Democratic precincts in Ohio waited 3 to 7 hours to vote. In Republican precincts there were no lines, and voters went
through in 5 minutes, [based on] 8 voting machines in some Republican precincts, and only 1 or 3 in Democratic precincts. There was a real disparity.

It could be unbelievably powerful, Kerry thought. Kerry realized that fighting would mean leaving
the country in disarray for the 2nd presidential election in a row. He decided to accept the result. "To do otherwise," he said later, "would have been personal. It would have been just the wrong thing to do when you're running for president of the US."

OpEd: Swift Boat mess caused by media reporting accusations

Tom Oliphant, the mild-mannered "Boston Globe" columnist, was mad. Nearly 40 years of journalistic experience informed Oliphant's elegant rage. He had covered Kerry since his return from Vietnam and his emergence as an antiwar leader. He knew Kerry's
story chapter and verse and he had heard these attacks before. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had been slinging their feces at Kerry like gorillas for months. But Tom was mad because of the way the media had responded:

"We've put a million stories
in our wastebaskets over the years, because they don't check out. Today, we publish, or we broadcast, the mere FACT of the accusation, regardless of whether it's filled with helium. THAT'S what changed in our business. We served as transmission belts for
this stuff without ever inquiring into its accuracy. 'How did this happen?' That's the way the news business runs now." For weeks, political news coverage had been dominated by "the mere fact of the accusation."

We need to do more to link good work with faith

Q: What part does your faith play on your policy decisions?

BUSH: My faith plays a big part in my life. Prayer and religion sustain me. When I make decisions, I stand on principle, and the principles are derived from who I am. I believe we ought to
love our neighbor like we love ourself, as manifested in public policy through the faith-based initiative. I believe that God wants everybody to be free. And that’s been part of my foreign policy. In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a
gift from the Almighty.

KERRY: I went to a church school and I was taught that the two greatest commandments are: Love God, with all your mind, your body and your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.I think we have a lot more loving of our
neighbor to do. We have an unequal school system. And the president and I have a difference of opinion about how we live out our sense of our faith. I talked about it earlier when I talked about faith without works being dead.

Bigotry and hatred should never steal our hope and future

Two young bicycle mechanics from Dayton asked what if this airplane could take off at Kitty Hawk? It did that and changed the world forever. A young president asked what if we could go to the moon in ten years? And now we’re exploring the solar system
and the stars. A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.

And now it’s our time to ask: What if?
What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson’s, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and AIDs? What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?
What if we do what adults should do-and make sure all our children are safe in the afternoons after school? What if we have a leadership as good as the American dream - so that bigotry and hatred never again steal the hope and future of any American?

The flag represents who we are and what we believe in

The Old Glory. The stars and stripes. I fought under that flag, as did so many of you and all across our country. It flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind.
It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with. For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good.

Reject politics that divide people

We must make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks. This is our time to reject the kind of politics calculated to divide race from race, group from group, region from region. Maybe some just see us divided into red states and
blue states, but I see us as one America - red, white, & blue. When I am President, I will enlist people of talent, Republicans as well as Democrats, to find the common ground so that no one who has something to contribute will be left on the sidelines.

Pray humbly that we are on God’s side

We welcome people of faith. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say: I don’t wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day. I don’t want to claim that
God is on our side. As Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God’s side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.

Jewish grandparents fled anti-Semitic Europe in 1905

Frederick A. Kerry was actually a Czech Jew named Fritz Kohn who had fled the aggressive Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1905, brutalized by anti-Semitism.
Three years before his arrival in America he married Ida Lowe, a beautiful Jewish musician from Budapest. According to the "Boston Globe," the young couple simply studied a map of Europe, found County Kerry in Ireland, and chose it as their last name.
Baptized as Catholics, they moved to Chicago. Eventually they moved to Brookline. He seldom missed attending Catholic church services on Sunday. (He kept it secret that he was of Jewish descent.)
It seemed, to the outside world, that the Kerry family exemplified the American dream.

Honors the separation of church and state

Q: Will church versus state issues hurt the Democratic Party’s chances in areas of the country like the South?

A: No, I think I agree completely with Dean. I think that we can be people of faith, and we are. But as Kennedy made clear to the nation in
Houston in 1960, we cherish as a country the separation of church and state. I think many of us turn to God in our private moments and also when we go to church or mosque or synagogue. But we recognize that the beauty of America respects the divisions.

Persecuted Catholics rely on church-state separation

Catholics have always been a minority in this country, and we have sometimes suffered persecution. To a larger extent than Catholics elsewhere, we have supported and relied upon the constitutional principle of separation of church and state to guarantee
our right to worship and our liberty of conscience. That tradition, strongly advanced by John Kennedy in his quest to become our first Catholic president, helped make religious affiliation a non-issue in American politics. It should stay that way

Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 24
, Oct 1, 2003

Need a president who won’t write laws only for contributors

This is the biggest say-one-thing-do-another administration in all time. The president says one thing about children, does another, one thing about taxes, does another, about housing, about the war. We deserve a president of the United States
who will write laws for all Americans, not for campaign contributors. And I intend to be a president for all Americans who takes back the flag of our country because it doesn’t belong to any party, doesn’t belong to any president.

Source: Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate
, Sep 9, 2003

John Kerry on Campaign Themes

Service is what brought America peace and prosperity

We thank that whole generation for making America strong, for winning WWII, winning the Cold War, and for the great gift of service which brought America 50 years of peace and prosperity. My parents inspired me to serve, and when I was a high school
junior, Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the beginning of a great journey - a time to march for civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women, and for peace. We believed we could change the world. You know what? We did.

Restore trust and credibility to the White House

As President, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House. I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a Vice President who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws.
I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.

Seeing complexities of complex issues is not flip-flopping

After 9/11 all us rallied to Bush’s call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats. There were no Republicans. There were only Americans. How we wish it had stayed that way. Now there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities-and I d
-because some issues just aren’t all that simple. Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn’t make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn’t make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn’t make it so.

Shutting one’s eyes and ears to the truth is not patriotism

To those who question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction for our country, before wrapping themselves in the flag & shutting their eyes & ears to the truth, they should remember what America is really all about. They should remember
the great idea of freedom for which so many have given their lives. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism.

America can do better and help is on the way

Where is the conscience of our country? It’s in rural and small town America; it’s in urban neighborhoods and suburban main streets; it’s alive in the people I’ve met in every part of this land. It’s bursting in the hearts of Americans determined to give
our country back its values and truth. We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before. We value jobs where, when you put in a week’s work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, and lift up the quality of your life.

Ready to lead America: I was there and I led the fight

Kerry made his case: “I have the experience,” Kerry said. “I’m ready to lead America.” “I was in Rio, in Buenos Aires, in Kyoto, in The Hague,” he said, fighting the good fight against global warming.
“I led the fight on health care,” Kerry said. “I led the fight for early childhood education and for clean air.” What he meant, but never quite said, was that his rival Howard Dean had written none of those laws, attended none of those conferences,
led none of those fights. The closest Kerry came was when he asked his audience: “Would you hire a contractor who had never built a house to build one for you?” [Because NH surveys have Kerry behind Dean], Kerry feels obliged to assure those listening
to him that he is in the contest to stay. “I am a fighter,” he said repeatedly. “This race is by no means over. As the last weeks close, people begin to focus. Who can be elected? Who can beat George Bush?”

Campaign built around a call to service

No matter what issue I address, my underlying message will be the same:It’s time to renew a sense of common purpose. My presidential campaign will be built around the ideas of shared endeavor, national service, intergenerational obligation,
and activism aimed at overcoming partisan and personal rivalries to meet the demands of a decisive, even fateful, era. That’s why I’ve titled the book A Call to Service. I hear that call, and I believe most Americans are ready to hear it as well.

Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 13
, Oct 1, 2003

Redeem promise for a better America for our children

I am a child of the greatest generation of Americans and therefore a member of the most fortunate generation of Americans. Like my parents, I have always hopes and often assumed that my own children will have more opportunities in life than
I had and will live in a country and in a world where such opportunities are more widely shared and more deeply rooted than at any time in the past.

I am running for president in no small part to redeem that promise for the America to come.
While we are living today in the most extraordinary and powerful nation no earth, I believe not only that America’s best days are still to come but that our best work is yet to be done. We have the capacity to lift the life of our own land as well as
lead the world to a safer and more hopeful future. But doing so will require equal measures of strength, vision, and resolve, embodied in a leadership that grasps both the breadth of our potential and the great legacy of our past.

It is time for this country to ask again, why not?

35 years ago I heard the news of Robert Kennedy’s victory and then assassination. That moment was seared in me, as were the words, ‘Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask, why not?’

I’m running for presiden
because I believe it is time for this country to ask again, why not? Why not in the richest country on the face of the planet, health care for all of our citizens accessible and affordable? Why not early childhood education so that all of our children
get the best start in life? Why not invest in our future and our jobs by creating energy independence for America? Why not have a military that is strong but at the same time advances our ideals around the globe? And why not have a president
who understands the truth that the flag and patriotism do not belong to any one party, they belong to all Americans?

I believe we can achieve these ideals, and I ask you to join me in the effort to make America safer, stronger and more secure.

John Kerry on Personal

My faith affects everything that I do

My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. The Bible says, “Faith without works is dead.” Everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people.
That’s why I fight against poverty, fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth, and fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith. But God’s work must truly be our own.

Source: Third Bush-Kerry debate, in Tempe AZ
, Oct 13, 2004

My mother was the rock of our family

My mother was the rock of our family as so many mothers. She stayed up late to help me do my homework. She sat by my bed when I was sick, and she answered the questions of a child. She was my den mother when I was a Cub Scout and so proud of her 50-year
pin as a Girl Scout leader. She gave me her passion for the environment. She taught me to see trees as the cathedrals of nature. By the power of her example, she showed me we can and must finish the march toward full equality for all women in our country

Grandfather committed suicide; John never told he was Jewish

Richard Kerry, John’s father, was 6 years old at the time of his father’s suicide. He would also lose a sister, to cancer, and that crush of grief seems to have hardened his personality enough that his children would have a hard time penetrating it
years later. “He didn’t share emotions easily,” Kerry says. The Kerry kids never knew the full story of their grandfather until the Boston Globe published its account last year. “I knew he committed suicide, but I never knew the how or why.
I never really asked. I sort of figured overdose.“ Neither did Kerry know that his grandfather was a Jewish convert to Catholicism. ”I was not aware of the name change. And obviously, I wish my mother and father were alive to ask them.“ Only in his
father’s last years did Kerry talk to him a bit about the past. ”I think my dad was really upset about the loss of not only his father, but ultimately his sister, and I think it had a lot of impact on him. Just a sadness. I sensed there was a big hole.“

Source: Time Magazine, “The Making Of John Kerry”
, Jul 6, 2004

Spent summers on Cape Cod and hometown in Millis MA

Kerry cannot be so easily situated in the public mind. He may be the Senator from Massachusetts, but he is not from Massachusetts. He is not really from anywhere; his father’s legal and diplomatic career meant that the family moved every few years.
Now he talks about deep roots nourished through summers on Cape Cod with all the various cousins, and says people have made too much of the moving around -
even though he famously had to shop for a congressional district the first time he ran for public office, in 1972, because he didn’t really have a hometown.
If any place comes close, it is a rural town outside Boston called Millis, where the Kerrys settled after the war. They bought a big, pretty house with six bedrooms, multiple fireplaces and a pond

Source: Time Magazine, “The Making Of John Kerry”
, Jul 6, 2004

Member of Skull & Bones at Yale, like Bush

The storied Order of Skull and Bones was created in 1832 by Yale student William H. Russell, no doubt for reasons utterly unconnected to the club's suspiciously nefarious image today. It is still housed in a strange mausoleum-style edifice now entwined
in ivy. Skull and Bones' reputation as a breeding ground for high-level public servants, rather than the particularly silly frat house it at first appears to be, evolved over the decades because so many of its members hailed from Eastern establishment
families. That said, at least to the uninitiated the organization has always smacked mostly of the over-privileged yet jejune. Because its members are sworn to lifelong secrecy, no outsider can say for sure what goes on at Skull and Bones, or why.

Like most Yalies so honored, John Kerry was thrilled with getting tapped. Joining Skull and Bones was another step in what he had come to see as a natural progression.

Political heroes: Max Cleland, FDR, JFK, Lincoln

Q: Who are your political heroes?

A: Max Cleland is an extraordinary example-he’s a triple amputee and a veteran. He’s an excellent example for us all. Other heroes of mine are: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, & John Kennedy-
they were leaders that took extraordinary risk. That’s what political leadership is supposed to be all about. It’s hard to pick just one-there are a lot of leaders in their communities who are doing amazing work. We can all learn from their examples.

Voted YES on confirming of Sonia Sotomayor to Supreme Court.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee kicked off the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. In her opening statement, Judge Sotomayor pledged a "fidelity to the law:"

"In the past month, many Senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. It is simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make the law--it is to apply the law. And it is clear, I believe, that my record in two courts reflects my rigorous commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its terms; interpreting statutes according to their terms and Congress's intent; and hewing faithfully to precedents established by the Supreme Court and my Circuit Court. In each case I have heard, I have applied the law to the facts at hand."

Religious affiliation: Catholic.

Kerry : religious affiliation:

The Adherents.com website is an independent project and is not supported by or affiliated with any organization (academic, religious, or otherwise).

What’s an adherent?

The most common definition used in broad compilations of statistical data is somebody who claims to belong to or worship in a religion. This is the self-identification method of determining who is an adherent of what religion, and it is the method used in most national surveys and polls.

Such factors as religious service attendance, belief, practice, familiarity with doctrine, belief in certain creeds, etc., may be important to sociologists, religious leaders, and others. But these are measures of religiosity and are usually not used academically to define a person’s membership in a particular religion. It is important to recognize there are various levels of adherence, or membership within religious traditions or religious bodies. There’s no single definition, and sources of adherent statistics do not always make it clear what definition they are using.

New Democrat: "Third Way" instead of left-right debate.

Kerry adopted Third Way principles of the Democratic Leadership Council:

America and the world have changed dramatically in the closing decades of the 20th century. The industrial order of the 20th century is rapidly yielding to the networked “New Economy” of the 21st century. Our political and governing systems, however, have lagged behind the rest of society in adapting to these seismic shifts. They remain stuck in the left-right debates and the top-down bureaucracies of the industrial past.

The Democratic Leadership Council, and its affiliated think tank the Progressive Policy Institute, have been catalysts for modernizing politics and government. The core principles and ideas of this “Third Way” movement [began with] Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaign in 1992, Tony Blair’s Labour Party in Britain in 1997, and Gerhard Shroeder’s Social Democrats in Germany in 1998.

The Third Way philosophy seeks to adapt enduring progressive values to the new challenges of he information age. It rests on three cornerstones:

the idea that government
should promote equal opportunity for all while granting special privilege for none;

an ethic of mutual responsibility that equally rejects the politics of entitlement and the politics of social abandonment;

and, a new approach to governing that empowers citizens to act for themselves.

The Third Way approach to economic opportunity and security stresses technological innovation, competitive enterprise, and education rather than top- down redistribution or laissez faire. On questions of values, it embraces “tolerant traditionalism,” honoring traditional moral and family values while resisting attempts to impose them on others. It favors an enabling rather than a bureaucratic government, expanding choices for citizens, using market means to achieve public ends and encouraging civic and community institutions to play a larger role in public life. The Third Way works to build inclusive, multiethnic societies based on common allegiance to democratic values.

Member of the Senate New Democrat Coalition.

Kerry is a member of the Senate New Democrat Coalition:

The Senate New Democrat Coalition (SNDC) [is analogous to] the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) in the House. Members of both groups are moderate Democrats who advocate a new centrist, progressive approach to governing and who often reach across party lines to get things done.

Established in 1997, the House New Democrat Coalition (NDC) grew to 64 members between 1998 and 2000, making it the largest caucus in the House. With the success of NDN’s top House candidates on Election Day, the NDC has grown to 72 members in the 107th Congress. The Senate New Democrat Coalition (SNDC), established in 2000, is already 20 members.

In announcing the establishment of the SNDC in February 2000, Sen. Landrieu stated, “The American people are tired of the same old proposals and are demanding that we work together in a more creative way on the many problems facing our nation. Too often here in Washington, the loudest voices are the ones on the far left and far right. That is why this group was formed, to give voice to those in the sensible center.” The SNDC has already made its voice heard on critical issues ranging from education to trade to health care and, with the Senate evenly divided, the Senate New Dems are increasingly determining the balance of power.

Member of Democratic Leadership Council.

Kerry is a member of the Democratic Leadership Council:

Mission

The DLC’s mission is to promote public debate within the Democratic Party and the public at large about national and international policy and political issues. Specifically, as the founding organization of the New Democrat movement, the DLC’s goal is to modernize the progressive tradition in American politics for the 21st Century by advancing a set of innovative ideas for governing through a national network of elected officials and community leaders.

Who We Are

The Democratic Leadership Council is an idea center, catalyst, and national voice for a reform movement that is reshaping American politics by moving it beyond the old left-right debate. The DLC seeks to define and galvanize popular support for a new public philosophy built on progressive ideals, mainstream values, and innovative, non bureaucratic, market-based solutions. At its heart are three principles: promoting opportunity for all; demanding responsibility from everyone; and fostering a new sense
of community.

Since its inception, the DLC has championed policies from spurring private sector economic growth, fiscal discipline and community policing to work based welfare reform, expanded international trade, and national service. Throughout the 90’s, innovative, New Democrat policies implemented by former DLC Chairman President Bill Clinton have helped produce the longest period of sustained economic growth in our history, the lowest unemployment in a generation, 22 million new jobs, cut the welfare rolls in half, reduced the crime rate for seven straight years, balanced the budget and streamlined the federal bureaucracy to its smallest size since the Kennedy administration.

Now, the DLC is promoting new ideas -- such as a second generation of environmental protection and new economy and technology development strategies -- that is distinctly different from traditional liberalism and conservatism to build the next generation of America’s leaders.

Fund the 50 States Commemorative Coin Program.

Kerry co-sponsored the 50 States Commemorative Coin Program Act

Mandates redesign of quarter-dollar coins issued during the ten-year period beginning 1999, with the reverse side emblematic of five of the 50 States each year during such period, selected in the order of their ratification of the U.S. Constitution or their admission to the Union.

Mandates that the dollar coin shall be golden in color, have a distinctive edge, with tactile and visual features making it readily discernible.

Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to place into circulation $1 coins that comply with such mandate upon depletion of the Government's supply of $1 coins bearing the likeness of Susan B. Anthony.